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> Review :: Sapphire Spires, Rating 4 out of 5
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post Jul 18 2005, 11:23 AM
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PDAmill is a developer of games and applications for portable platforms including Windows SmartPhones and Pocket PCs, Palm and Symbian devices. Their products show consistently well thought out designs put together into polished final products.

The staff of Mobile Gadget News has been given the chance to review their latest offerings of games for the SmartPhone platform. These games are all jewel based games with different gameplay requiremnts. Jewel games have become like Tetris, in that many variations of the original game have emerged, and all seem to have a dedicated (or addicted) following. This series of games will prove to be just as addicting as their other titles.

Here is what PDAmill has to say about Sapphire Spires:

QUOTE
In this mining puzzle you will find those incorrectly mined gems that are used to be thrown away by your fellow Dwarves as useless junk. Your Dwarf Aybund however devised a way of saving and turning these in to valuable Gems again. Hence if you take Bad Gems in groups of three and rearrange them with other bad Gems, they could be used as Gems again.


Note: The screen captures in this review were made using Microsoft's ActiveSync Remote Display. They contain border window information not seen on the actual phone.

When the game starts up you are asked to put in your name:



The main menu gives you a few options:



The INFO section contains quite a bit of information including gameplay instructions and game story.






Here are the options for configuring game play. The volume and brightness controls are pretty self explainatory. The reverse flip changes the direction gems are rotated (more on that in a minute) and show grid makes it easier for older eyes to get things lined up!



And of course, every game must have a high score board!



Ready to play? Let's Go!



The game instructions are very easy, but putting them together into a good run is not. Each drop has 3 gems in it. You can rotate the gem order to make the top gem on the bottom, middle gem on top, etc. Basically they rotate bottom to top or top to bottom. You want to rotate them so that when they land, the colors match up with their neighboring gems to get at least 3 of the same color in a row. When that happens, those gems disappear. Sounds easy right? Trust me, it isn't!




One helper the game gives you are the buzz saws that fall with the gems. Aim them at your highest stack and watch it cut through them all the way to the bottom!



The object is to not let the gems reach the ceiling. Clear off enough gems and you advance to the next level. Fail to keep the gems from reaching the ceiling and you will find yourself starting all over again.

This game is maddening. In fact I found myself wanting to throw my phone out the window a few times. But I really enjoyed playing this game.

This is yet another example of the eye candy PDAmill produces. And the gameplay is smooth and easy to understand. The game is well designed and has an interesting objective. I have given it a 4 out of 5.

Buy it at Handango


--------------------
Jim Cleek (Slacker)
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Mobile Gadget News

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